We have a new update in the works. You can get a beta version in the Members Club. It has a long list of data changes, some scenario fixes, rules corrections, and bug fixes. It also includes Scenario changes for Don to the Danube, if you have that installed.

V1.06.05  March 20, 2012

New Features and Rule Changes

1. New Scenario  Added an alternate 1941-45 Campaign scenario with adjusted victory conditions. The scenario is titled 1941-45 Campaign  Alt VC260. This is identical to the normal 1941-45 Campaign except that it ends at the start of turn 212 (5 July 1945). The Axis Decisive Victory level (Automatic Victory) is 260 instead of 290. The Soviet Major Victory timeframe ends on 31 March 1945 (instead of 31 May 1945) and the Soviet Minor Victory timeframe between 1 April 1945 and 30 June 1945. A draw occurs if Germany does not surrender by 1 July 1945 and the Axis has less than 142 victory points. Note for scenario modders: These altered victory conditions will apply to any scenario that is set to end on turn 212. 2. New Interface  When the auto assign button (or g hotkey) is used, a message will now appear if the Leader has made a successful leader role and reduced the AP expenditure. Per the item above, all transfers will now cost a minimum of 1 point. 3. AI Improvements  Improved the German AI with regards to operations to secure the Leningrad area and capture Odessa. Sped up Soviet AI, especially when dealing with its units that are isolated. Fixed a bug preventing the AI when at an advantage from attacking as much as it should (especially for the Soviet AI). 4. Rule Correction (sections 6.2.2 and 14.1.5)  The movement cost for both Motorized and Non-Motorized units to move into a mountain pass hex, if moving along the rail, is 4 MPs (not 8 or 3). Also, the presence of any enemy zone of control does not prevent the use of the mountain pass movement rate (although units must pay all normal ZOC movement costs). 5. Rule Correction (section 12.2)  The following sentence in the manual should be deleted as there is a minimum cost of 1 for any unit transfer: A successful leader admin check that normally costs one point will reduce the admin cost of transferring that unit to zero. 6. Rule Correction (section 22.2.2)  There will be at most one mud turn per weather zone during turns from 01 December to 29 February (not 31 March as stated in the manual).

Bug Fixes

1. Fixed a bug that could cause excessive rotation of elements during the replacement phase. 2. Fixed the Insert/Delete functions for air groups in the editor. 3. Fixed a bug where factories could be ordered to move to invalid (off rail) cities. 4. Fixed a bug where withdrawing units were not set to be frozen for 6 turns when destroyed and were showing up as retreated in the battle report when in fact they had been destroyed. 5. Fixed the display of supplies available for units involved in an HQ build up. 6. Fixed a crash bug in the AI line forming function that appeared in the Road to Leningrad scenario.

1. Corrected the upgrade path on (Panzer Pioneer Squad 102). 2. Cleaned up outstanding errors and omissions and make some corrections based on better understanding of the game system to hopefully make the games work better data wise. Some highlights:  Removed all circular references (things upgrade to themselves);  Restored the German divisional artillery to full strength in 44 Infantry Division in WitE;  Reversed the allocation of BA-20 and BA-64 armored cars in all Soviet units using both to correct shortage problem;  Changed the default 76mm Field gun in most Soviet units from the F-22 to the ZiS-3 from 1942 on;  Removed most overlapping upgrades where a ground element is supposed to continue in production after it upgrades in order to allow production to continue to last date; hopefully this will reduce mass upgrades occurring;  Fixed any omissions/errors in upgrade paths which hopefully will stop weird messages in the event long. 3. Corrected yet again the upgrade path of the SS Motorized Brigades (OB 44 & 283) and fixed a file copy error that had the Hungarian Motorcycle Squad (0354) erroneously upgrading to a Rifle Squad. Both the 41 SS Motorized Brigade (OB 44) and the 43 SS Motorized Brigade now have end dates of January, 1945 and no upgrade paths. 4. Fixed the amount of Support elements in the Rumanian Air Base TOE (OB 570). 5. 42 Separate Tank Battalion (OB 241) no longer upgrades to Tank Regiment and Last Year/Last Month changed to 43/12 (historically these battalions were disbanded or used to form tank brigades). 6. Changed Eugen von Schoberts rank to Generaloberst 7. Corrected the Maximum Command Level of Ivan Chernyakhovsky to Front. 8. Corrected Morale rating of Fyodor Krasovsky to 5.

Changes in AC file

1. Some minor changes like maxload or max alt rounding not noted, other changes below:

5. 42 Separate Tank Battalion (OB 241) no longer upgrades to Tank Regiment and Last Year/Last Month changed to 43/12 (historically these battalions were disbanded or used to form tank brigades).

Which reminds me, IIUC the Russian 1941 ski battalions were add hoc units drawn from soldiers within existing divisions that could ski. They were then disolved back into their divisions after the winter. With so much pedantry to accurately depict the SS, could we not please have rules to depict 1941 ski units? If this is indeed the the way these battalions came about, could we either-

1. If these units were detached from their original division, have these units spawn from divisions, thus weakening them until they re-merge, but producing ski units at or near the exp/morale of the 'mother' unit.

2. If they were used within their division, mark the division as containing a 'ski capable' batallion with CV modified accordingly.

Thanks.

_____________________________

The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations. ฏ Thomas Jefferson

5. 42 Separate Tank Battalion (OB 241) no longer upgrades to Tank Regiment and Last Year/Last Month changed to 43/12 (historically these battalions were disbanded or used to form tank brigades).

Does this mean that APs spent on creating these are now basically wasted, or well, not wasted, you get a tank regiment for a time, but badly spent? It appears it might be fair to give the Soviets free tank brigades at some ratio as compensation?

While I truly appreciate the care, research and details on modelling the aircrafts (I really do, this is an amazing effort, don't get me wrong), I fear if all that is wasted on the generic air model the game uses.

I mean, adding 23 minutes to endurance for historical accuracy is great, but I have no control which aircrafts will be flying CAP and the game may end up sending something idiotic to fly. Or will not fly at all. Or fly to the wrong place. Or may spend all their flying time on escorts I didn't need them to. Or will be all shot down trying to straffe that stack of 3 corps with 1,000 AA guns when they were supposed to just escort one recon flight. And then there's no point trying to build elite groups, because I have no control on trying to do that.

With all those generic and unknown variables, the only thing that works for sure is to accumulate 3,000 aircrafts one hex away from their HQ, and move the whole blob to where you want air superiority.

My point is: the whole air war feels like a big dough ball or a big blob of blurp. There's no fine point for the air units, and therefore that wonderful work to precisely model the fine points of individual airframes just gets lost in the dough.

I do think you have a point there fbs. While it is nice with the detail, for all the player can influence the air war, it would probably work just as well with 5 generic basic types, fighter, level bomber, dive bomber etc. All that detail with the right sort of cannon, bomb etc seems largely wasted effort. Especially when other parts of the game are rather rough and ready, the weather and the supply system for example. It is really the same thing with ground equipment, WITE bothers with the exact number and type of Sdkfz whatever in this and that division, but all rail lines are the same, even though the type of rail line available probably had a much bigger impact on operations.

Same here, I love this game and enjoy it a lot, not wanting to sound negative, but some of the design decisions concerning what's detailed and what's generic and simplified seem very uneven and almost inexplicable.

There's one simple reason why so many changes are going into the aircraft data. It's that we have a volunteer that is spending a lot of time researching and improving the data. The impact on WitE may not be huge, but when we have an opportunity to improve the data we'll take it. This improved data is going over to WitW where much more programming and design time is being put into the air game. Rome wasn't built in a day.

It's better to get the aircraft data fixed once so you don't have to tinker with it again. And yes - the air combat model in WitE is a bit rough but that shall improve in WitW. Tinkering with the data and playtesting these changes did also show some bugs in the air combat system that Pavel was able to identify and resolve. Two examples from ground attack missions - aircraft used to fire all their weapons at ground targets, even top rear or top turret position ones, some aircraft used their drop tanks to eliminate enemy targets - some kind of early napalm bombs ..... A lot of data error were fixed like wrong equipment orientation (bombs in forward position), too many or not enough bombs/load/fuel or impossible combinations of max fuel and max bombload.

My point is: the whole air war feels like a big dough ball or a big blob of blurp. There's no fine point for the air units, and therefore that wonderful work to precisely model the fine points of individual airframes just gets lost in the dough.

I don't want to sound negative.

+1 I also don't want sound negative; I like WitE alot! But the airwar is in my opion a farce, I'm sad that Gary did not make it so detailed as we could see it in BoB/BtR.

1. New Scenario  Added an alternate 1941-45 Campaign scenario with adjusted victory conditions. The scenario is titled 1941-45 Campaign  Alt VC260. This is identical to the normal 1941-45 Campaign except that it ends at the start of turn 212 (5 July 1945). The Axis Decisive Victory level (Automatic Victory) is 260 instead of 290. The Soviet Major Victory timeframe ends on 31 March 1945 (instead of 31 May 1945) and the Soviet Minor Victory timeframe between 1 April 1945 and 30 June 1945. A draw occurs if Germany does not surrender by 1 July 1945 and the Axis has less than 142 victory points.

Agree strongly on the air war, though also highly appreciative of the volunteer work going into the data changes, and hopeful that things will improve with WiTW and that the changes will be ported back to WiTE at some point soon thereafter rather then waiting for the potential WITE 2 or War in Europe (that would be in 2020, I mean?).

But that said, I kinda wish the air war in the game would just go away into something abstracted. Seems way too much either just moving air bases around in large lumps or exploiting the system through such things as spam of small raids or tinkering through trial and error to get those perfect turn 1 bombing totals. It is really a sore thumb in what is otherwise such a fantastic game.

5. 42 Separate Tank Battalion (OB 241) no longer upgrades to Tank Regiment and Last Year/Last Month changed to 43/12 (historically these battalions were disbanded or used to form tank brigades).

Does this mean that APs spent on creating these are now basically wasted, or well, not wasted, you get a tank regiment for a time, but badly spent? It appears it might be fair to give the Soviets free tank brigades at some ratio as compensation?

So to be clear, if I create tank battalions, they will stay battalion size forever. So I can make some ( or none) and then wait for regiments to be selectable then swap them out (for APs to disband or move them) vice auto-upgrade?

Also, I think the morale increase means the ? mech Corps near the north Rumanian border can crack the Lvov Pocket now. I ran and re ran this attack in a PBEM game ( after I had finished and emailed the turn of course) and every time the Pz Regiments were pushed aside. I am assuming the three Pz Regmient blocking move is the standard for most Lvov pockets, so it's days may be over, at least on Turn One.

ORIGINAL: Farfarer Also, I think the morale increase means the ? mech Corps near the north Rumanian border can crack the Lvov Pocket now. I ran and re ran this attack in a PBEM game ( after I had finished and emailed the turn of course) and every time the Pz Regiments were pushed aside. I am assuming the three Pz Regmient blocking move is the standard for most Lvov pockets, so it's days may be over, at least on Turn One.

ORIGINAL: Farfarer Also, I think the morale increase means the ? mech Corps near the north Rumanian border can crack the Lvov Pocket now. I ran and re ran this attack in a PBEM game ( after I had finished and emailed the turn of course) and every time the Pz Regiments were pushed aside. I am assuming the three Pz Regmient blocking move is the standard for most Lvov pockets, so it's days may be over, at least on Turn One.

Morale increase? What have I missed?

From Flavius:

Soviet at start morale is randomized, and each game will yield different results for your starting units. Sometimes dramatically so. Although on average you can expect Western and NW Fronts to be garbage and SW Front and the interior reserve armies to be somewhat better.

ORIGINAL: Andrew Loveridge 5. 42 Separate Tank Battalion (OB 241) no longer upgrades to Tank Regiment and Last Year/Last Month changed to 43/12 (historically these battalions were disbanded or used to form tank brigades).

Are you guys sure this is completely historical, that NO Tank Bns were upgraded to Regts?

Seriously, why not just make a historical Soviet OOB so we don't have to deal with all this minute micromanagement. Like really, we're micromanaging Soviet Tank Bns!?

If you want to make it historical, have a function to allow 2-3 Tank Bns to be merged to form a Tank Bde. Also allow 3-4 Art Regts to form an Art Bde. Allow 3-4 Art Bdes to form an Art Div. Allow Tank Regts to convert to SU Regts. Allow Naval Rifle Bdes to form Rifle Divisions. Allow for the historical creation and use of ski units (the game really doesn't replicate the Soviet ski capability at all). Etc...There's lots of room to fine tune the Soviet OOB to match historical...

I know it's not easy to replicate the evolution of the Soviet Army in WW2, but this constant stream of building and disbanding isn't a good substitute for the HISTORICAL conversion/absorbtion/continuity that Soviet units went through. And frankly, it's becoming a waste of playing time to constantly build and disband, let alone the lack of historical information provided to players as to what we're actually supposed to build or disband.

I'm sorry, but the lack of an historical Soviet OOB is begining to turn me off this game. I don't mind managing my army, but to be micro-managing Bns in a game of this scale is a waste of time. If nothing else, create a roughly historical OOB for support units only, and let the players fine tune and manage the Brigades, Divisions, and Corps.

An interesting contrast is many of the recent patches, where the minutest of details are often changed in aircraft data, and yet the whole Soviet OOB is WIDE open...

There's one simple reason why so many changes are going into the aircraft data. It's that we have a volunteer that is spending a lot of time researching and improving the data. The impact on WitE may not be huge, but when we have an opportunity to improve the data we'll take it. This improved data is going over to WitW where much more programming and design time is being put into the air game. Rome wasn't built in a day.

If I'm willing to put in some volunteer time, is there a chance we could develop a somewhat more historical Soviet OOB?

The design decision was made a long time ago to allow the Soviets to build and manage their army development over time after 1941. Of course the editor can be used to try to create a historical Soviet reinforcment system which together with some house rules (altering APs and Soviet build ability) could alter this dynamic. While we'd be interested in improvements in the 1941 reinforcement list (which is the part that is fixed, other than the destroyed units returning), I'm not sure that's what you're talking about, so you'd need to be more specific regarding what you're looking to develop. You're welcome to email 2by3@2by3games.com with more specifics.

ORIGINAL: Farfarer Also, I think the morale increase means the ? mech Corps near the north Rumanian border can crack the Lvov Pocket now. I ran and re ran this attack in a PBEM game ( after I had finished and emailed the turn of course) and every time the Pz Regiments were pushed aside. I am assuming the three Pz Regmient blocking move is the standard for most Lvov pockets, so it's days may be over, at least on Turn One.

Morale increase? What have I missed?

From Flavius:

Soviet at start morale is randomized, and each game will yield different results for your starting units. Sometimes dramatically so. Although on average you can expect Western and NW Fronts to be garbage and SW Front and the interior reserve armies to be somewhat better.

Yes, but that was several upgrades ago, wasn't it? I thought there was a new morale change that I'd missed.

The design decision was made a long time ago to allow the Soviets to build and manage their army development over time after 1941. Of course the editor can be used to try to create a historical Soviet reinforcment system which together with some house rules (altering APs and Soviet build ability) could alter this dynamic. While we'd be interested in improvements in the 1941 reinforcement list (which is the part that is fixed, other than the destroyed units returning), I'm not sure that's what you're talking about, so you'd need to be more specific regarding what you're looking to develop. You're welcome to email 2by3@2by3games.com with more specifics.

It seems that the recent changes in AP draining expenses (the Soviets now have to manually disband tank batallions and create regiments, and also it appears that nearly all of the aircraft upgrades have disappeared meaning that if you want aircraft other than biplanes flying in your units by 1945 then you have to spend a lot of APs manually upgrading each air unit, plus the minimum AP cost to transfer a unit is now 1, up from 0) are starting to get incompatible with creating and managing army development.

Since we now have to spend extra APs to do all of these things, as well as build more HQs to spread the divisions more thinly since the CC changes, wouldn't it make sense to add more APs to the Soviet side? Or reduce the cost of some other things such as transferring HQs between fronts, building forts, assigning SUs, disbanding units, REACTIVATING UNITS FROM STATIC MODE, etc?

Which soviet aircraft upgrade paths have been removed? There haven't been any for I-15 or I-16, we can't set them for MiG-3 and LaGG-3 as the factories diverted to multiple other projects. I had thought about adding paths for I-15/I-16 to a 1942 aircraft type but I'm a bit limited in soviet air unit organizations and opt to not include it yet. I'm always open for suggestions backed up by historical data, maybe there's a valid upgrade path I could use for the biplanes.

Denniss, right now the only fighter bombers that will automatically upgrade are the relatively few Yak-1 regiments you receive in 41. Getting all the biplanes, Migs and Laggs into newer models is a huge AP sink, probably close to 200 APs.

So far as the tank battalions go, I think this latest change makes them not worth building at all.

As said, we can't install upgrade paths for MiG and LaGG as the upgrade path also affects factories - both MiG and LaGG-3 (except one) produced different aircraft after their initial run ended or after relocation.

The Tank Battalion change came around because there were still independant tank battalions fielded by the Soviets during Bagration. Originally, the game started automatically upgrading the Tank Battalions into Regiments in 1942 which meant the Tank Battalions completely disappeared and couldn't be used in any scenarios in 43 & 44 because they would automatically start upgrading. In researching this further, I found no examples of Tank Battalion expanding into their own Tank Regiments.

Trey

quote:

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Denniss, right now the only fighter bombers that will automatically upgrade are the relatively few Yak-1 regiments you receive in 41. Getting all the biplanes, Migs and Laggs into newer models is a huge AP sink, probably close to 200 APs.

So far as the tank battalions go, I think this latest change makes them not worth building at all.

Denniss, right now the only fighter bombers that will automatically upgrade are the relatively few Yak-1 regiments you receive in 41. Getting all the biplanes, Migs and Laggs into newer models is a huge AP sink, probably close to 200 APs.

So far as the tank battalions go, I think this latest change makes them not worth building at all.

Heresy i know, but I find the Red Air Force composition essentially irrelevant - it is what it is - a huge blunt instrument. For all I care they can kamikaze themselves into the Panzers - is there setting for that ? Just kidding. I leave it on auto upgrade, take what I get and pound the LW and Ost Heer mercilessly. I only expend AP to manually control the upgrade of Transport aircraft - now there is something to think about before I am pilloried.

I am very grateful for the volunteer work to make the technical aircraft abilities as accurate as possible. Thank you Denniss :)

The Tank Battalion change came around because there were still independant tank battalions fielded by the Soviets during Bagration. Originally, the game started automatically upgrading the Tank Battalions into Regiments in 1942 which meant the Tank Battalions completely disappeared and couldn't be used in any scenarios in 43 & 44 because they would automatically start upgrading. In researching this further, I found no examples of Tank Battalion expanding into their own Tank Regiments.

Upon further review, it appears most Tank Bns were absorbed into or used to form Tank Bdes. However, many Tank Bdes were then later converted to Tank Regts. By having Tank Bns upgrade to Regts was a very clever way of replicating this complicated evolution. Unfourtunately, we are now left with the time consuming and awkward process of building dozens of Tank Bns, disbanding them, building Tank Bdes, disbanding them, building dozens of Tank Regts...

For those of us wanting an historical OOB, it is a perplexing pain in the butt to create one.

If the intention of this change was to allow for the use to a handful of Tank Bns in 1944, why not create a "B" TOE Tank Bn for optional use (ie: scenario design) that doesn't upgrade to a Regt?

ORIGINAL: Schmart Upon further review, it appears most Tank Bns were absorbed into or used to form Tank Bdes. However, many Tank Bdes were then later converted to Tank Regts. By having Tank Bns upgrade to Regts was a very clever way of replicating this complicated evolution. Unfourtunately, we are now left with the time consuming and awkward process of building dozens of Tank Bns, disbanding them, building Tank Bdes, disbanding them, building dozens of Tank Regts...

For those of us wanting an historical OOB, it is a perplexing pain in the butt to create one.

If the intention of this change was to allow for the use to a handful of Tank Bns in 1944, why not create a "B" TOE Tank Bn for optional use (ie: scenario design) that doesn't upgrade to a Regt?

Alternatively just eliminate the AP cost to disband a support unit, or eliminate the AP cost to disband a unit that's marked as "obsolete" in the OOB. Mark the Tank Bns as obsolete on a certain date and the Soviet player can just disband them for free and build regiments and/or brigades. The actual tanks will cycle through the pool as they usually do.

Actually the AP system in this game has now become so complex that I'd be inclined to throw it away and start again.